Experiences from Cyberinfrastructure Development for Multiuser Remote Instrumentation

Experiences from Cyberinfrastructure Development for Multiuser Remote Instrumentation Prasad Calyam, Ph. D. David Hudak, Ph. D. Ashok Krishnamurthy, Ph. D. Karen Tomko, Ph. D. Cyberinfrastructure and Software Development Group, OSC IEEE e-Science Conference, Indianapolis, December 10 th 2008

Overview • Multi-user Remote Instrumentation? • Application Scenario and Components • OSC-developed Solutions • Deployment Case Studies 2

Remote Instrumentation Overview • Academia and Industry use scientific instruments – E. g. , Electron Microscopes, Telescopes, Spectrometers – Used for research and training/classroom purposes – Such instruments are expensive to buy and maintain • $450 K - $ 4 Million initial purchase + Staff $ to maintain • Remote Instrumentation – Remote access of instruments, related devices and their data resources via the Internet • Benefits – Access for remote students and researchers – Return on Investment (ROI) for instrument labs – Avoids duplication of instrument investments for funding agencies 3

Remote Instrumentation Application Scenario 4

OSC’s Remote Instrumentation Program • RI cyberinfrastructure development for Ohio-based universities involves using OSC’s state-wide resources – Networking, HPC, Storage, Analytics • Pilot program funded by the Ohio Board of Regents • Goal: “Leverage Ohio’s investments in scientific instruments, wide area networking, high-performance computing, and data storage to foster academia-industry collaborations involving remote instrumentation” 5

OSC’s Remote Instrumentation Partners • The Ohio State University – Scanning Electron Microscope, Material Science Engg. Dept. – Raman Spectrometer, Chemistry Dept. – Mc. Graw-Hill Telescope, Astronomy Dept. • Miami University – NMR Spectrometer, Chemistry and Biochemistry Dept. – Unipulsed EPR Spectrometer, Chemistry and Biochemistry Dept. – Transmission Electron Microscope, Geography Dept. • Ohio University – Nuclear Accelerator, Physics and Astronomy Dept. 6

Remote Instrumentation Components § Instrument Lab Site § Remote User Site • Remote Observation • Resource Scheduling • Remote Operation • Sample Handling • Voice/Text Chat • Lab Notebook § OSC • Use Policy • Web-portal Development • Usage Billing • Data Storage Management • Real-time Analytics • Network and Data Security 7

Technical Challenges • Network bandwidth – Last-mile bottlenecks lead to improperation – can cause expensive instrument damage – Frame rate and video quality tradeoffs • Communications – Remote User(s) and Operator co-ordination – VNC/RDP, Vo. IP, Videoconference, Presence, Control passing, Web cam – Simultaneous multi-device views for user workflows • Dead man's switch – Fail-safe method to stop the service in case instrument Operator becomes incapacitated • File system access – Web services – User accounts, Data read on instrument file system, Data read/write for analytics on mass storage file system • Network Security – VPN, Ports, Firewall rules, Encryption/Authentication 8

Policy Challenges • Scheduling Policy – Prioritizing users – PI/Co-PI, Graduate Students, Industry – Synchronizing calendars of devices and personnel – Sample handling • Licensing – Remote users observation/operation and analytics • Service Level Agreements – Vendor – ISP/ASP • Safe-use Policy – Expert privileges, Novice privileges • Billing – Setup surcharge, Fee/hr, Fee/session, Resource units 9

Case Studies • Account of OSC experiences with cyber-enabling various kinds of scientific instruments – Solutions evaluated – Solutions developed – Open issues • Three Case Studies – OSU Material Science and Engg. Dept. – Electron Microscopes – OSU Chemistry Dept. – Raman Spectrometer – MU Bio-Chemistry Dept. – 850 MHz NMR 10

Case Study-I: OSU CAMM • OSU Center for Accelerated Maturation of Materials (CAMM) has acquired high-end Electron Microscopes – Used for materials modeling studies at sub-angstrom level • OSC providing networking, analytics and storage support for remote microscopy – Permanent console at Stark State for Timken access • Hardware-based (Think. Logical) KVMo. IP solution – Image processing of samples (automation with MATLAB) for Analytics service – Lab Notebook for image management • Remote Microscopy Demonstrations – Supercomputing, Tampa, FL (Nov 2006) – Internet 2 Fall Member Meeting, Chicago, IL (Dec 2006) – Stark State University, Canton, OH (Mar 2007)

Network Connection Quality Vs User Control • Higher TCP throughput (i. e. , mouse and keyboard activity) on poor network connections Increased user effort with keyboard and mouse on poor connections • “Congestion begets more congestion” 1 Gbps LAN – Expert Task-1 60 B/s Task-2 Task-3 Public 100 Mbps LAN – Expert Task-1 900 B/s Task-2 Task-3 100 Mbps WAN – Expert Task-1 Task-2 Task-3 1400 B/s 60 s User expends minimum effort with keyboard and mouse to complete use-case 100 s User expends notably more effort with keyboard and mouse to complete use-case 12 140 s User expends a “lot” of effort with keyboard and mouse to complete use-case

Image Processing • Automated Matlab processing of electron microscope images – Alternate to Adobe Photoshop (Fovea Pro 4 plug-in) filters that take multiple days to process – Filters: E. g. , Image Blurring/De-Blurring, Image Dilation/Opening – Matlab GUI development for sample filters testing before batch jobs Processed Image Inputs Gaussian Blur Dilate Image 13

Case Study-II: OSU Chemistry • Recent purchase of a Combined Raman - FTIR Microprobe – To get complimentary Raman-IR information about chemicals • OSC custom developed a Remote Instrumentation Collaboration Environment (RICE) software – Enable local students and researchers to work from comfort of their offices or homes – Access for remote collaborators: California State University, Dominguez Hills, CA; Oakwood University, Huntsville, AL • Active RICE testing and concurrent development in progress – “Pink Screen” GPU problem – Dual-screen resolution issues – Overlay error issues in Vendor software 14

OSU Chemistry Instrument Lab 4 XEM Webcam Live View on Web browser; Dual monitor PC with advanced network & multimedia cards Cyber-enabled Instrument 15

“Pink Screen” GPU Problem • Software-Software VNC issue – OS not aware of GPU video processing • Solution: Use Hardware-Software KVMo. IP (e. g. Adder), or Hardware-Hardware KVMo. IP (e. g. Thinklogical) Remote VNC Client View 16

Dual-screen Resolution Problem • Default VNC (i. e. , Ultra VNC) distribution issue with dual monitors and extended desktop Left Monitor Right Monitor 17 Remote VNC Client View

Dual-screen Resolution OSC-Solution • Solution: OSC-patch with increased image geometry Left Monitor Right Monitor 18 Remote RICE Client View

Overlay Error Issue in Vendor Software • Remote VNC client refresh causes local video overlay error • Solution: Adhoc trials - notified vendor support Left Monitor Right Monitor 19 Local View with error message

OSU RICE Solution Screenshot 20

OSU RICE Solution Features • “Network-aware” video encoding – Optimizes frame rates based on available network bandwidth – Manual video-quality adjustment slider • “Network-aware” action blocking – Warns user of network congestion – Blocks user-actions during high network congestion scenarios • Collaboration tools for Multi-user support – – Peer-to-Peer Vo. IP/ Multi-user Vo. IP Multi-user Colored-text Chat Multi-user Presence Multi-user Control-lock passing • Multiple display resolutions – Small screen – Full screen – Dual screen (remote site with dual monitors and extended desktop) 21

OSU RICE Solution Demo 22

Case Study-III: MU Biochemistry • Recent purchase of 850 MHz NMR – first of its kind in North America • For studying supra molecular architectures and functional materials • RICE integrated with web-portal for management of remote instrumentation sessions, user collaboration and data – Access for remote collaborators: Bowling Green State University, Ohio University, Muskingum College, Talawanda High School 23

MU-NMR System Deployment 24

Web-portal User Work-flows 25

Web-portal Features • User Accounts and Privileges • Management of Instruments, Projects, Samples, Sessions, Experiments • KVMo. IP and RICE access control • Asynchronous chat for remote monitoring of experiment progress • Experiment data archival at OSC storage • Analysis of stored data sets using OSC-hosted Topspin software 26

Web-portal Architecture 27

Web-portal and RICE Screenshots 28

RICE use-cases for Research and Training • Remote participants can view expert (also remote!) controlling a scientific instrument – Efficiently: Multi-party Vo. IP, Presence and Chat collaboration – Reliably: Network awareness mitigates instrument damage • Expert can pass control to remote participants – Train students to operate the instrument during class – Allow another expert to study the sample under study • Researchers and Students can conduct experiments at their assigned slots on the instruments 29

Conclusion • Developing cyberinfrastructures for RI requires: (a) Understanding and overcoming multi-disciplinary challenges to develop solutions (b) Developing reconfigurable-and-integrated solutions that need to be tailored on a per-instrument basis (c) Close collaborations between instrument labs, infrastructure providers, and application developers 30

Future Directions • “Reconfigurable-and-Integrated” Tools and Web-portals – RICE, Wikis, Lab Notebook, Mailing lists, Calendar, … • Human-centered Remote Instrumentation solutions for “at-theinstrument” experience Human-aware Codec Adaptation ROI Video Encoding 31

Thank you! 32

MU RICE Solution Demo 33